Employee Profile: Hilary Prosnitz and Christine Holmberg

Although Hilary Prosnitz and Christine Holmberg come from different areas, Hilary from retirement research and Christine from psychiatric and medical research, they both serve as Program Coordinators for Research Affairs at Yale Cancer Center, and were instrumental in the recent submission of the Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) to the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Over five years, the CCSG provides integral funding to the 7 Research Programs and 8 Shared Resources at Yale Cancer Center, as well as numerous other departments, positions, and programs. The funds are spread out throughout the Cancer Center so that researchers and clinicians receive some form of support from the grant. "Yale Cancer Center has been an NCI designated comprehensive cancer center for over 35 years, and the CCSG is a major external funding driver," Hilary explained. "The submission of the grant is the culmination of over 2 years of work and it serves as the backbone of much of the critically important cancer research being done here."

A lot of the work that Hilary and Christine put into the grant had to do with writing and rewriting sections of the grant and collecting and organizing data for the 1,000 page document. Hilary and Christine commented that the next step in the process is the NCI site visit, which will take place in February. The NCI will review the operations of Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, and make sure that all the numbers match up. Christine commented, "This whole process is 100% a team effort. We'd like to thank everyone for their cooperation in making this possible, and for their future help with the site visit. It's easy to get lost in the paperwork and data, but there really are some amazing researchers here at Yale, and I am honored to play a small part in helping them get the funding to continue this research. Some of the initiatives set forth in this grant will hopefully have real outcomes for patients."

Chad A. Ellis, PhD, Deputy Director for Research commends his entire team for their hard work. He commented, "Hilary and Christine come to work each day with a positive, "can-do", outside-of-the-box approach to their work. They seek challenges, solve problems, and eagerly collaborate with folks inside and outside of the organization. The CCSG was submitted early due in large part to their efforts, which is pretty remarkable considering they never heard the term "CCSG" prior to arriving at YCC in the last year or two. We are very fortunate to have them on our team."